Tom Stevens: Luis Rivas Appointed President Of Objectivist Party Of California

On May 14, 2013, Luis Rivas was appointed to serve as President of the Objectivist Party of California.

In accepting the appointment, Luis Rivas said:

Objectivism came to me as a curiosity. I heard people mention the name Ayn Rand and the more I asked, the more negative answers I got. As a result, I decided to read about her and read what she wrote so I could draw my own conclusions. Her perspectives and philosophy resonated with me. It was something I had been searching for. I came out of the punk-scene where “individual attitude” and “individualism” was a primary value but at the same time, it was largely a collectivist ideal where you don’t fit in well if you say you want to be successful. America to me is supposed to be a place where individuals go out and reach their highest potential, where the government stays out of the way and is only there to protect each person’s individual rights. I always wanted to get more involved in politics. It was always something that interested me. One day, I asked myself, “what if there was a party that promoted Objectivism” and like any curious person, I searched the web and there it was: http://www.objectivistparty.us. I looked at the site, read about the party and loved it! I joined the Objectivist Party and all the relevant Facebook Groups and when the call went out for new officers, I expressed my enthusiasm and availability. I consider my new role as President of the Objectivist Party of California to be an exciting new adventure and a great opportunity. I thank Dr. Tom Stevens for his confidence in me and for his willingness to help me achieve great things for the Objectivist Party in California. I will do everything I can to make it influential and to work with the members to make a difference in our effort to promote liberty and reason.

The Objectivist Party of California was chartered on August 9, 2008. Its first President was Nicholas Huber, who served from August 9, 2008 to August 12, 2010. Its second President was Maxfield Bern, who served from August 12, 2010 to May 14, 2013.

The Objectivist Party was founded by Thomas Robert Stevens on February 2, 2008, Ayn Rand’s birthday. It seeks to promote Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism in the political realm.

Dr. Tom makes a party. Dr. Tom makes a party affiliate. Dr. Tom decides who is in charge of that affiliate. Dr. Tom seeks and gains positions of power in other parties at the same time as he’s running his own party.

somebody has been slavishly reposting on IPR almost every post that Tom Stevens gurgles out on his vanity blog.

Chris Lesiak is free to report about whatever he deems deserves coverage if it fits into general IPR subject matter (alt parties and independent candidates, people associated with alt parties). Same goes for other IPR writers. Each article has a byline. I’m glad Chris has taken most of the article posting off my hands. I spend way too much time here, yet I feel alt party news and views need(s) a blog like this.

My question for Chris was more technical. We have categories we place articles into, and he put this one under Libertarian Party. I was asking why.

“Liberty Lion” is a vanity blog. It exists to post editorials written by Tom Stevens (with Tom Stevens referenced in the third person) in accordance with Tom Stevens’ biases, directly promoting Tom Stevens’ opinions, with content often about Tom Stevens. It’s not journalism.

I do not know Tom Stevens and I have no biases either for or against him. It does seem clear that he is, by far, the dominant person on this Objectivist Party and has many of the trappings of a ‘control-freak’ .

But in fairness, we should note that there are around 500 or more signatories/members throughout the U.S and world wide. For ex; 32 in NY, 40 in FL, 25 in CA and even 12 in Canada,
not to mention the UK, India, Venezuela, etc.
etc.

Interestingly, I see quite a few Hispanic names and whereas Hispanic members of the LP are virtually nonexistent; not to mention black and Asian; consequently I’d suspect that the LP would profit greatly by contacting these folks and introduce them to the Libertarian Party.

There are already, if anything, too many categories. Originally it would have been non-left/right parties. Now it should be liberty/free market parties, which did not exist when we started. Further balkanization is inadvisable.

If you don’t think it is newsworthy don’t read it and especially don’t comment on it. There are 11,000 or so other articles to discuss, many of which have zero comments, one that has over a thousand, and everything in between.